The four of us had finally reached the plane at the excavation site. Upon boarding, we were met with the sight of First's 20 Angels already there, standing in formation, lathered in blood.
"Woah, what?" Emanuel was the first to express our shock. "I thought they were on the frontlines distracting the border patrol…?"
Once we were in and seated, the plane closed its doors and began to take off, soon flying into the dark sky that stretched over New Zina's borders. We looked out of the windows, and that's when we saw it: the battle that had taken place while we performed our covert operation. The camps that previously surrounded the border were all set aflame, with debris scattering the perimeters and bloodied bodies piled over one another. What first looked like an impossible task for Enzo, with only 20 men against 200, ended up looking like a one-sided massacre. The spotlights that previously shone in all directions had been overtaken by the red glows of emergency lights, spinning in synchronization to the alarm that had been blaring. I realized that the alarm that was playing while we were in the building was not for us and the stolen technology. It was actually because of the catastrophe Enzo had caused on the frontlines.
The corpses that littered the grounds, every single one of them looked like an ant that had been stepped-on.
"First did all of that…?" Cynthia asked. "With only 20 Angels…?"
I looked to the center of the plane. Those very 20 Angels that caused the destruction below were in the room with us, covered in the blood of their victims. Before they were deployed to the mission, I thought I had been looking at dead men. In reality, I had completely underestimated Enzo.
"He's First for a reason." Kyra sighed, seemingly unphased. "You get used to the shock after a while."
It finally made sense to me, the reason Enzo looked at me the way he did when I initially expressed my concern for him. He must have found it humorous that I was worried for him, someone already at the top of the food chain.
"That's crazy… That's insane!" Emanuael suddenly got excited. "How does he do it? I wonder what his Fractal is?"
"Must be extremely strong if he can wipe out 200 with only 20," Cynthia said.
Wrong.
"Right? No wonder they keep it under the wraps. Must be really destructive."
Wrong. Absolutely wrong.
"I bet his Fractal was the Golden Fractal in his birth year!" Cynthia and Emanuael were going back and forth.
I facepalmed, frustrated at what I was hearing. The idea that First, Enzo, was so strong that he could fool anyone into thinking he had a Fractal, simply from his results, was unbelievable to me. Both Kyra and I exchanged similar expressions, as we both knew the truth to Enzo.
"I wonder if his Fractal is stronger than that one we saw at the end of the Invidan war?"
Emanuel's thought led the plane to sudden silence. We were all brought to think back on the event. It had been a while since the mystery occurred, and there was never really any conclusion to it for us.
"Right… That weird, green, telekinetic Fractal that we saw…"
"The one that saved us," I added onto Cynthia's description. "We would have lost that battle had it not been for that person. But who was it? And why did they do it..?"
The three of us, who witnessed the anomaly upfront, thought long and hard about possible reasoning. That was until Kyra spoke up. "I don't know who it is, but they do have a name. They're pretty infamous, like an urban myth."
"A name?" My curiosity was sparked.
"The Sin of Discrimination."
"The Sin of Discrimination… That rings a bell for some reason…" Emanuel began to wonder.
Then it occurred to me. "Sin…? Like the Seven Sins? That terrorist group with strong Fractals from the Filtering?"
"Oh right… Just like we learned in history class."
"Yes, but no." Kyra began to speak. "The Seven Sins were actually the first seven documented cases of Fractals from about 50 years ago."
"50 years ago?" Cynthia spoke up. "I thought Fractals started 40 years ago, just after the Filtering ended?"
"Oh right. You guys don't know…"
"Know about what?"
"The truth. They fed us quite a few lies in history class when we were younger. But when you make your way up Melysia's ranks, like the Upper Four, you slowly gain the privilege to learn some truths."
"Care to share?" My interest was all-in at this point. Even as someone without a Fractal, the history of Fractals had always been intriguing to me. Until now, the books had said that Fractals only began to spread about 40 years ago when the Filtering ended. The Filtering was an era that lasted for a decade, starting from the moment A.X.A. became the governing power, and ending when Melysia as a country was born. The period of time in between these dates, the Filtering itself, was referred to as the 'darkest period in history.' There were claims that for those ten years straight, there was no light. The sun was apparently gone. Even my parents, who lived through this era, supported this claim. Besides the eternal darkness that had been set, no laws, no regulations, and no limits were set in place. Everyone was free to do what they pleased. Without any boundaries being set to restrict the peoples' moral compass, death happened around every corner. Everyone was a fiend, either fending for themselves, or going on rampage against others. It became a world in which only the fittest and strongest could survive. The initial population before the Filtering was cut down by almost 60% by the time it ended. It was quite literally a period of time that filtered out the weak from the masses, leaving behind only the ones who were strong-witted enough to survive. And so A.X.A. had awarded those remaining with the birth of Fractals, and now we have grown into the society that Melysia is today.
But now, Kyra claims that some of the information we've been taught were lies. I was curious as to what a privileged Upper Four like her knew that we didn't.
"Your beliefs are half correct and half incorrect. Fractals did begin 40 years ago when the Filtering ended. Emphasis on the label 'Fractal.' But Fractals were the finished, perfected product. In its earlier testing stages, they didn't even have a name. They were just abilities imbued into test subjects. Those Seven Sins you've heard of were not actually present in the Filtering. In fact, they died before the Filtering even began."
"What?" Kyra was making me more confused.
"The Seven Sins existed in the era before the Filtering. They were the first seven documented cases of Fractals before they were even called Fractals. They were the test subjects. This was in a time where the majority of the population was still Fractless, a period of time when A.X.A. was not yet in power and when the country wasn't even called Melysia yet."
"Why did they choose to hide this fact from the textbooks instead of just telling us the truth?" Cynthia asked.
"That, I don't know," Kyra replied. "I've only been informed of this information without any reasons as to why. Me and Third thought about it together, and we came up with a little conspiracy that maybe A.X.A. just wanted to make the history of Fractals seem more fluent. Having its first cases occur before the Filtering doesn't exactly seem to line up with the idea that Fractals were born after the Filtering."
"True. Maybe they just wanted it all to sound more cohesive," Emanuel said.
"That's odd…" As much as the idea made sense, it had no merit. Why would the government move the pieces of history around to their liking? It made me question what other lies they could have inserted into Melysia's history. "Anyways… Why do they call that person the 'Sin of Discrimination'? Do they have any relation to the Seven Sins?"
"I don't think so." Kyra scratched her head. "But if there's any similarities between this 'Sin of Discrimination' and the Seven Sins besides their label, it has to be the strength of their Fractals. I saw what happened at the end of the battle with Invidan. I don't think I've ever bore witness to a Fractal as destructive and powerful as that."
"I know right? It's no wonder they also call that person a Sin. Their Fractal is strong, too strong, just like the Fractals from the Seven Sins" Emanuel said.
"It still hasn't occurred to me why they did what they did though. If we were about to lose, why did they intervene and help us win?" I asked.
"Because they're one of us. If they have a Fractal, then it means they're also from Melysia. Maybe they were just fighting for the sake of Melysia like we were," Cynthia said to me.
"But with that logic, why didn't they intervene earlier? With that amount of power, they could have finished the war from the start, before Sixth and Ninth died along with hundreds of other Angels. If they were fighting for Melysia, for our sake, they would have fought with us from the beginning. But instead, they came at the very last second just as we were about to lose everything. They arrived the latest they possibly could."
"Almost like it was on purpose…" Kyra added on. "But I wonder why... There's a reason the Sin of Discrimination is regarded as a myth. Even though there have been countless public sightings, every encounter describes something different. The events that occur when people come into contact with the Sin of Discrimination are almost illogical, and, unbelievable. There's no cohesion among the stories, other than just a few points. One is that the Sin has a strong, nearly undefinable green-colored Fractal. Another is that the Sin seemingly aims to terrorize people with stronger Fractals. But nobody can come up with a reason as to why they do this. It's all just random."
By this time, we were nearing Melysia and had begun our descent back to base. Dawn had already broken and the sun shone brilliantly through the darkness of the sky.
"Home sweet home."